This weekend the house moved the nanny state a little further down it’s evolutionary track toward tyranny. The statists, such as Nancy Pelosi, are acting like Lucy holding the football for Charlie Brown. “Come on Charlie Brown. I swear I’ll let you kick the ball.” Falling for the same old trick, pro-lifers, so-called Blue Dogs and various health companies bought into the trick.

Mrs. Pelosi’s craftiest political turn was a last-minute compromise to strip federal funds from insurance plans that cover abortions. The deal—negotiated by Michigan Democrat Bart Stupak and supported by the National Right to Life Committee—gave cover to 40-some Democrats to support the larger bill.

However, as subsidized costs soar, government will have no choice but to ration medical care, starting with the aged and grievously ill. Is pre-natal life more valuable than the elderly? We’re reminded of the way pro-lifers supported Anthony Kennedy over Laurence Silberman for the Supreme Court in 1987 merely because Mr. Kennedy was a Catholic who claimed to personally oppose abortion. Mr. Stupak played the right-to-lifers like a Stradavarius.

The real importance of the abortion uproar is as preview of the politics that will dominate every medical coverage issue if ObamaCare becomes law. Every decision of what to insure or not—when an MRI can be used, or whether a stage-four breast cancer patient can get Avastin or some future expensive drug—will become subject to political intervention over moral disputes or budget constraints. Heretofore, these decisions have largely been made between a doctor and patient. This is the real “right to life” issue.

Perhaps the most unsurprising news in this drama was the collapse of the Blue Dog “deficit hawks.” Enough of them always cave in the end to give Mrs. Pelosi her way. It’s nonetheless worth noting the surrender of that most vocal scourge of deficits, Tennessee’s Jim Cooper, who voted aye on grounds that the bill can be improved in the Senate.

via Pelosi’s Health Care Means Rationing Politics – WSJ.com.

If the pro-lifers think for one second that ObamaCare won’t cover abortions shortly after it’s passed, they apparently don’t follow politics much. The same goes for so-called Blue Dogs. The government never stands at a steady state. Like the universe, it’s always expanding. Once it gets its hooks into health care, it will act like a parasite devouring its host.

Anytime the government is involved in the economy, it claims to have the “right” to tell companies, people, etc what to do. Just ask all those on Wall Street who’s pay is not regulated. They didn’t agree to bailouts with that as a stipulation. They signed on, and that was sprung on them after the fact. When the government is involved, contracts and agreements don’t count. You fell for it again, and Pelosi is about to move the ball.

By way of Mises.org, here is another great examples of the free market delivering a plethora of choices for consumers. Take note of the mention of the government forced recycling programs and why they started them.

Also, image what it would be like if the beverage industry was heavily regulated like health care. Think you’d have all these options. Inversely, if government would get out of health care, you’d see a plethora of options in that industry as well.

As I have said many times, the free market allocates resources based on their highest and best use. It is fine tuned by millions of decisions and transactions of individuals. This is why the market is so efficient, and meets the needs of society. On the other hand, government allocates resources based on politics. It has nothing to do with real needs, other than the need of a politician to get re-elected. The Wall Street Journal has  an article on how the Democrats are trying to please all their members with pay offs in order to get their votes. So how is paying off all members with pork for their state supposed to lower cost?

LAFAYETTE, La. — Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu says she generally backs President Barack Obama’s health-care overhaul efforts. But she’d like to see a few items in the bill before voting for it, including bigger federal Medicaid payments for her home state of Louisiana, extended health coverage for her pet cause of foster children, and help for teaching hospitals in her state.

While pushing more spending in those areas, Ms. Landrieu also wants the plan to cut the overall amount the nation spends on health care.

via Democrats Pose Health Bill Hurdle – WSJ.com.

Some info on Republican plan via HotAir.

CBO director Douglas Elmendorf scored the new proposal from House Republicans on health-care reform and gave them plenty of ammunition to use against expansive and expensive Democratic plans for government takeovers. Their plan, which relies on interstate competition, HSAs, and tort reform, would only cost $61 billion in the first ten years of the plan — or slightly less than 6% of what Democrats plan to spend to overhaul the entire system:

This evening, CBO released a preliminary analysis of a substitute amendment to H.R. 3962, the Affordable Health Care for America Act, proposed by Representative John Boehner, the Republican Leader in the House of Representatives. CBO and the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) estimate that the amendment would reduce federal deficits by $68 billion over the 2010-2019 period; it would also slightly reduce federal budget deficits in the following decade, relative to those projected under current law, with a total effect during that decade that is in a broad range between zero and one-quarter percent of gross domestic product.

Unlike the Democratic proposals, the bill would actually reduce premiums:

CBO anticipates that the combination of provisions in the amendment would reduce average private health insurance premiums per enrollee in the United States, relative to what they would be under current law-by 7 percent to 10 percent in the small group market, by 5 percent to 8 percent for individually purchased insurance, and by zero to 3 percent in the large group market. Those are averages, however, and they are subject to a great deal of uncertainty; some individuals and families in each market would see different results.

via Hot Air » Blog Archive » GOP health-care reform cost: $61 billion, cut deficit $68 billion.

In an op-ed in today’s Wall Street Journal, Dr. Pardes, president and CEO of NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, talks about the coming doctor shortage.

It is important to note that the shortage the country will soon face isn’t just of primary-care physicians. It is true that there aren’t enough primary-care doctors and nurse practitioners. But it is also true that we need more cardiologists, neurologists, general surgeons, pediatric subspecialists, urologists and other highly trained specialists.

Nonetheless, the few ideas to address the coming doctor shortages that were briefly considered in Washington treated the problem merely as a shortfall of primary-care doctors. One idea is to shift unused federal training funds to hospitals that need more positions, but only if those funds are used for primary care. Another is to move primary-care physician training out of hospitals and into federally qualified health centers. A third idea is to take training dollars away from doctors and instead use it to train nurses and other professionals.

None of these ideas would actually increase the number of doctors. At most the first two ideas would increase the number of primary-care doctors at the expense of the number of specialists.

But that’s not likely to happen either. The fundamental reason why medical students are not entering primary care on their own is that they can’t afford it. Medical-school tuition can cost a student as much as $50,000 a year. Some doctors start out owing hundreds of thousands of dollars before they are even able to open a practice. Going to medical school is a little like taking out a mortgage, only without getting a house in return.

Once doctors do start treating patients, they are squeezed between what they earn from government programs and insurance companies on one side and escalating malpractice insurance rates on the other. Meanwhile, specialists can often charge more and pay less in other costs than primary-care doctors. The reality is that many physicians cannot afford to go into primary care.

To address the shortage of doctors and the incentives that compel young doctors to eschew primary care, Congress needs to think about how to increase doctor pay, institute malpractice reform, and provide subsidies to reduce the amount of debt doctors have to take on. Residency caps should also be raised so teaching hospitals can train more doctors. Without these actions new doctors would be foolish to enter primary care, and thankfully our medical schools do not recruit foolish people.

via Herbert Pardes: The Coming Shortage of Doctors – WSJ.com.

Unfortunately, the doctor seems to suffer from what most commentators and policy wonks suffer from. They believe that you can cure an illness by increasing the causes of the illness. It would be like telling an alcoholic to drink a different alcohol to cure his liver disease. The government creates the shortage by manipulating the free market. When the government implements price controls via program reimbursement rates, you end up effecting supply negatively.  The doctor also doesn’t seem to realize that part of the reason education is so expensive is there is a massive amount of government money chasing after education services. The more dollars chasing a good or service, the higher the price rises.

The doctors has many bad assumptions here that undermine his stated goal. He says that the cost of education is extremely high. He compares it to taking out a mortgage without getting a house. This is in my opinion economically silly. Tuition is in investment like any other investment. Actually, if you pick the right major, it can be a very high yielding investment. With the high cost of medical school, one would expect a high return on that investment. In the free market that would be the case. As I’ve already said, tuition has climbed year after year because of all the government money in education. Remove government, and you will lower cost. On top of that, the doctor says government programs squeeze doctors with government reimbursement rates. This alters the return on investment analysis as well. If your investment continues to grow larger because of government, and your return is “squeezed” by government, of course you are going to begin to see shortages. This is what government always does.

Unfortunately, he then argues the government should do more. He says Congress should be looking at ways to raise doctor pay. Are you serious? Government is the reason your pay is decreasing. Get the government out of health care, and you will begin to see salaries increase.  In the free market, if there is a shortage in supply, prices increase. Seeing the increase in price (or pay in this case), competitors enter the market (in this case doctors).

Also, as price is driven up, entrepreneurs will look for alternate solutions to doctors. An real world example of this are the clinics at many local pharmacies.

Government on the other hand will just hold prices against the will of the market. As Austrian economists will tell you, “You can control price or supply, but you can’t control both.” Because government is controlling price, they will drive down supply. This will ultimately lead in the opposite outcome that the doctor claims to want. Even if the government funnels money in to subsidize doctors, they are taking that money from another area of the economy. While they may be able to falsely increase the supply of doctors, they’d end up producing a shortage in another area. This is why we defeated the Soviet Union. Central planning never works. Government always gets it wrong. The free market does this on its own by the decisions of millions of people. While I appreciate the doctors concern, I wish he’d drop his assumption that government can fix this. They have never been able to fix a problem in the economy without creating multiple new and worse problems.

This is a great video from a post on HotAir that hits the nail on the head of why we have problems with our health care, THIRD PARTY PAYER.

I picked this up from Hotair, and in my opinion this is why Romney has no chance in 2012, and why I’m glad he didn’t get the nomination in 2008. Don’t claim to be a free market conservative when you implemented one of the country’s only state run health insurance programs that is now blowing up in their face. Now he’s claiming it wasn’t meant to bring down cost. Well, if you were a free market guy, you would have realized providing insurance to all only drives up costs, and the costs are what make complain about health care.

This election I will have a litmus test. Do you believe in the free market, as in no government intervention at all, or do you believe government should intervene and so called protect “the people”. If you answer the latter, you don’t know what the free market is, and you lost my vote. Hopefully other free market folks will do the same.

Hot Air » Blog Archive » Video: RomneyCare was never about lowering costs, says Mitt.

In a her column today, Ann Coutler explains why the parts of health care that aren’t covered by many insurance plans are the ones providing faster service, declining prices and more innovation.

She also explains how health insurance and the mess that has ensued from it was created by guess who? The Government. Great read. Check it out.

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/opinion/s_650562.html

Apparently, one of the tweeps I was debating on Twitter was so hot and bothered by my blog, he thought he would set me straight. The problem for him is when debating, feelings don’t count and distortions are against the rules. Here is the criticism with my response and corrections interspersed.

The other day I had an interesting back and forth on Twitter about healthcare. The debate was whether to let the free market have its way or whether the Federal government should have a stronger hand in a “Medicare Part E” plan for everyone. At the end of the discussion I was pointed to an article on Jason’s The Proud Profiteer website entitled Health Care Reform – The red herring of the pre-existing condition. I read every word of the article and have some thoughts about the free market as it exists today and where I think the author is wrong about where we should go.

Wow, the author couldn’t even get out of the first paragraph without showing the weakness of his argument. Saying “some thoughts about the free market as it exists today” shows the the author doesn’t understand the free market. I was not arguing for the status quo. I was arguing the problem with the current health care isn’t a lack of government meddling but too much government. The government currently accounts for 50% of all health care spending. If government was the solutions, we would have already seen improvements. The fact that health care costs have risen above inflation since the government inserted itself into the market shows the government actually makes the problem worse. It also proves that the problem isn’t the free market. The problem is you don’t have a free market. As soon as you introduce government coercion, you no longer have a free market. It is no different than if the government took away you freedom of speech. You technically are still free, but you are less free than you were.

I’m all for freedom and principles in this country. The author is correct in pointing out that the country was founded on the freedom and the need to get away from tyranny, taxes and religious persecution. Now the drumbeat throughout certain people in this country is that free markets and freedom will be the pill that will cure the country’s ills. Just get government out of the way of everything but defense and we will be a better place for it. Make it “small enough to drown in a bathtub,” to coin a phrase used by one of our most memorable politicians.

One of the ways we applied these principles was to allow mortgage companies, insurance giants and auto makers to, as the author says it, be free to succeed or fail. They’re good at what they do, so why not turn them loose to thrive and then we can all benefit at their success. So how do you explain the story of Goldman Sachs, AIG and the Freddie/Fannie debacles? Weren’t these companies free to pursue their own fortunes? And what would’ve happened if they were allowed to just fail? I guess those that would’ve allowed the complete meltdown wouldn’t mind what is happening in their free market 401(k).

Surely, this part had to be a joke. The author, if he has any understanding of the free market, would not have used the examples above to discredit the free market. The entire mortgage crisis was created and encouraged by the very government that the author claims is the solution. The artificially low interest rates by the Fed spurred on by affordable housing legislation and pressures caused the bubble, and it was only a matter of time before it burst. While the author may think he had me nailed here, people that know me, know that I predicted this bubble was going to go down very soon at the height of the housing bubble. The thing is if you understand economics, you can recognize business growth from bullshit.  This disaster was the culprit for the so called failed examples above. Freddie and Fannie are government sponsored agencies for pete’s sake. They are told what to do by the government and they are the ones who invented the securitization of mortgages that the evil banks were selling.

“But we should still get out of the health insurance company’ way,” you say. “Once they have complete freedom they’ll offer a virtual cornucopia of health insurance options that every thirst will be slaked. You’ll see that there will be lots of companies and options.” If you Google health insurance company monopoly, you will quickly discover that for several years large companies have had a lock on providing health care for people. If we get out of the way, what do the Blues, Aetna and the rest do? Do they allow rigorous competition and thousands of new companies to spring up? I think they either buy up those companies to stifle competition or squash them. I was told in the Twitter conversation that we should force these companies to compete with each other. So which is it – get out of their way with no regulation or force them to compete?

Hmm, not sure who said you have to force competition. It sure wasn’t me. My whole point in my post was that force is the evil. The role of the government is to prevent force from being used by one person against another. If you are tying in another conversation you had, don’t credit it to me. As far as your argument, again you are talking about a market that is not free. Companies cannot acquire a monopoly and stifle competition unless they have government backing, or they are the absolute best at what they do. If they are a monopoly because they are the best at what they do, then we all benefit.

The fact that health care and insurance are so heavily regulated now is what prevents many competitors. What you don’t seem to realize is regulation equals costs. When you have extensive regulation the costs get so high that they are a barrier to entry and only the big boys can afford to play the game. Don’t blame the free market for lack of competition. Your argument is easily disproved by looking at less regulated industries, such as the IT industry. The less regulation you have the more innovation, the more competition, and the quicker you see costs driven down.

If government is our own worst enemy as the author’s comments point out, why not just get rid of everything? Courts – who needs them? You’ve gotta beef with someone, handle it yourself and if you don’t get anywhere, kick the person’s ass or kill them. If one of those purely good companies make a product that turns out to seriously injure or kill people and you’re one of the poor schmucks that gets hurt or killed, tough luck bud. Like I just said, take a truck of Anthro and fuel and have at it.

Police and fire – we don’t need them, right? I’m sure there’s a security company that would be glad to give you your own security detail cause it’ll “fill a need.” Don’t have enough money to hire a security agency? Deal with it. There’s lots of crime victims out there. Go find the turkey yourself and dispense justice.  The 911 system is a socialist, government run system – get rid of that too. You’re having a heart attack, stroke? Get someone to put you in their car and drive you to the doctor. We don’t need no stinkin’ government run ambulances and medical staff. Hire some doctors and paramedics to stand by if you think you’ll need them.

Like you all say, for every need there’s someone to fit the bill at competitive rates, and since we’ll all be SO much more profitable when everyone gets out of free market’s way, we’ll be able to afford all these new things, right?

“But these are all ESSENTIAL government services,” you say. “You can’t take that away!” You know what, here’s where I want you to draw the line. Black & white. Think of all the things that you might need in life. Tell me why you would keep or privatize them. Then tell me why health care is not as important as 911, police, fire & paramedics. Why would you want to keep 911 as a government service but leave health care – the ability to live or die – as a FOR PROFIT endeavor.

Here is where you take my arguments and just completely distort everything. My argument is governments role is to prevent coercion. Now where does that say get rid of the courts? Where do you think government would enforce laws against coercion? Where do you think contract breaches would be adjudicated? Again, you take my argument and add a bunch of your own ridiculous arguments to it. Where did I say handle it yourself, kill people, etc? I’m pretty sure that would be included in the coercion I said the government should prevent, which is the whole point of founding a government. Your argument is very childish.

This police argument is not new. You haven’t had a brilliant brain fart. This is the typical response from socialists. The problem is police are a part of the government role to prevent coercion. What the hell do you think police do? As far as fire, in most communities the fire department is funded by charity. They hold fund raisers, and the fireman are volunteers. Apparently, you think that is socialism? In cities, this could be privatized, and it would probably be cheaper than paying your taxes. It would be no different than paying for security monitoring on your house. I’m not sure if you’ve read a newspaper lately, but there are many “government” services, such as trash collection being privatized. Do you think it’s being privatized because it’s worse?

Lastly, even if you leave these as government roles, which I personally don’t have a problem with, they are not federal programs. Apparently, you don’t seem to recognize the difference between local services provided and agreed upon by local citizens, paid for by their local taxes with Federal entitlement programs.

If you can’t afford heath insurance, Jason says that you’ll have to turn to charity. Leukemia and unemployed – charity. Stroke leaving you the inability to walk, speak or do your job – charity. Born with cerebral palsy or autism and your parents or unemployed/underemployed – charity. Jason, do me a favor, a little experiment. Take you & your son down to a doctor’s office you’ve never been to before. Tell the receptionist that you’re out of work and need your child seen for whatever – you name the illness. After they get done telling you to pay cash or you don’t get seen, take the amount of money the doctors wants you to shell out and start calling some churches. Give them the same story and tell them that you’ll probably need that same amount of money each month since your child might need special ongoing treatment. When you find the charity that’ll dole out that money month after month, let me know. The difference in your opening paragraphs – each of these families you mention probably has at least ONE working member in the household providing pay for health insurance. If I’m wrong, tell me how they’re handling things on charity.

To start, I said in my blogs that you should pay out of pocket for day to day care, and you should buy a low cost catastrophic insurance plan for things, such as the ones mentioned above. The purpose for insurance is to be there for catastrophe. Again, you distort my argument.

Second, I can guarantee you I have way more experience dealing with health care than you do. My son does have cerebral palsy, and while you and Obama discredit doctors as profit seeking devils, I’ve seen first hand the charity of doctors. Doctors don’t go through 8 years of schooling followed by years of residency because of the money. It’s a calling, and they do it to help people. Most of them already do charity. Also, charities already help people every day. You many want to check them out. Most liberals claim to love charity, but it’s usually only the charity from someone else’s pocket via goverment coercion. Who do you think fled down to New Orleans after Katrina? It was the charities on the front lines getting the hard work done, while the government, as usual, stumbled and caused more harm than good.

In addition, my argument talked about charitable donations exploding because of more money remaining in the pockets of citizens. Do you think a rich guy who’s kid died from leukemia, wouldn’t setup a foundation to research and help other parents with children who have leukemia? Where do you think charitable foundations come from? Have you ever heard of Shriners? I’m pretty sure they offer health care and are a charity. How about this report, that charitable donations reached a record in 2007 under the Bush tax cuts. Oh, and that doesn’t even take into account time and labor. You may want to give your fellow man a little more credit.

When I’m buying a car or a toaster, I want free market competition. I want the government to stay out of the way UNLESS what those kind folks are selling is hurting people. When I’m having a heart attack or stroke, I want an ambulance and crew to show up as quickly as possible and save me life! I don’t want to have to think if I paid my premiums that month or that some FOR PROFIT company “with my best interest in mind” will deny me life saving treatment.

How does a publicly traded company, beholden to its stockholders and profits, have my best interest in mind? If I’m a stockholder that’s easy. If you’re a CEO with complete free market freedoms, how do you take care of people with serious medical problems and still make your bottom line? How would Ford survive as a company if most of the vehicle they sold were Pintos or some other high maintenance vehicle? What incentives and marketing schemes would they contrive to make it profitable?

via RIAsults may vary: Health Care Reform – The AIG, Freddie & GM pill. Take two of these and don’t call me in the morning.

You final argument just demonizes businesses. It’s silly to act like business people are evil, and that some how government people are angels. You may want to challenge your assumptions. Government employees and especially politicians have their self interest in mind as well, and it is more often than not detrimental to the public good. Private capital is rewarded by efficiency, which means it addresses the most needs at the least cost. That is why you can buy your toaster so cheap. This does not take place in government. In government, politics and inefficiency are rewarded, resulting in less needs being met.

While I appreciate the time you took to respond and I enjoy the debate, I really wish you would keep your arguments away from your feelings and would not distort my arguments. We are talking about a gigantic issue, and we cannot make this decision on feelings. We have to make it on reason. Just because you get a warm feeling in your belly when you talking about everyone having health care doesn’t make it so. You may want to read my other blogs on health care, where I talk about what the real problems with health care are and why government intervention will only make things worse. Then again, I’m sure that doesn’t feel good.

For some reason, Americans have been sold on what I’ll now term “the free ride theory”, in which we think we can live our collective lives like we’ve lived our lives over the past decade by racking up our collective debt for today’s keep up with the Jones. Under the Bush administration we racked up debt for a prescription drug program, pork projects and wars. Not to be shown up, Obama has increased our yearly deficits four fold. Is there any end in sight?

No, of course not.

Why stop spending when you can buy votes with so called free goodies. We need to nationalize health care, because we don’t want to pay Wal-Mart for our $4 prescriptions. We need to bail out banks, because supposedly we’ll all lose our jobs if we don’t. We have to take over GM, so that a company, which none of us wants their products, can stay in business. We have to bribe granny with a $250 check, because we don’t want to lose her vote. We have to spend billions to create so called “Green Jobs” because there is no market for them. We’re talking about bailing out newspapers; although most of us get news on the internet. We pay farmers to destroy crops, because we think prices need to be high enough for them to keep producing. With all this frivilous spending, how do you think it is going to be paid for? It is going to be paid by the enslavement of your children, my children and our grandchildren.

This is not just colorful language. It is grounded in the reality we will soon bare witness to.

What is debt? Debt is you promising tomorrows labor for today’s expenditures. When you buy that new car with a loan, you are saying I am going to work X number of hours in the future to get you the money for this plus interest, so that you can give me the car now. If you don’t work those hours, you don’t make the money. If you don’t make the money and pay them, they take the car back. Personal debt is bad enough, but at least you are only enslaving yourself.

What is the most dispicable aspect of what we (yes that includes me) are doing is we are not just enslaving ourselves. We are not saying, I will pay for this. We are building up so much debt that my two year old daughter, my nine year old son, your children, our children’s children and who knows how many generations to come will be enslaved. We are not pledging our future labor for today’s useless expenditures. We are pledging ours and future generations. We aren’t even giving them the chance to say NO. We are saying, “Sorry future Americans, but we want ‘free health car’. We don’t want any job losses (they haven’t stopped have they). We want bridges to nowhere. We want research how to manage the smell of manure! And we want you to pay for it.”

Now, economists would argue that deficits cancel themselves out. They explain this by saying that while we borrow the money, the future generation will hold the Treasury Bonds (an asset) and receive the interest plus principle of those bonds. This basically negates the theory that debt robs one generation by the previous. While this may be true, I emailed the economist that had this in his book. I asked “that may be true if all the debt was held by Americans, but what if China is holding a large portion of that debt. Would that not mean, that A) China is holding the Treasury bond as an asset, and B) won’t they be receiving the interest.?” He responded Yes, that is correct. The book would only apply if future generations means all people regardless of borders. So, not only are we enslaving our future generations, we are enslaving them to China, Japan and other nations. We are saying we want all this stuff, and we are willing to make the next generation work for it in order to transfer the value of their production out of the country. Does this sound like a recipe for a brighter future for our children? While our children are working, the rewards of their work is not bettering their lives. It’s being transferred out to better the lives of foreign nations.

Does this sound like it’s just theory? As of right this  second (it goes up constantly), each citizen owes $343,785. If you have a family of four as I do, multiply that by four, and you get your household debt. Just this week, Moody’s rating agency said the US is a few years away from losing our AAA credit rating. This has never happened. It would be catastrophic to our country and economy. It would mean higher interest on the debt, which would mean even more future labor pledged to today’s expenses.

What does it say that our Secretary of State is begging China to buy more of our debt? We are begging our children’s masters to enslave them. How moral are we?

The financial crisis, we are still in the midst of, undoubtedly woke a lot of people up to the evils of excessive debt. Unfortunately, it has not awoken our politicians. While many families have cut back spending to bring their lives under control, they have at the same time asked the government to continue and even ramp up the very actions that caused them harm in the first place.

While this post is a little depressing, hopefully it will serve as a call to action. A call to stop asking for free handouts from the government that your children will be enslaved for. Stop electing politicians who promise the world and buy votes with pork. Vote for politicians who are going to address the debt problem and speak the truth. With every government policy you hear about ask “How is that going to lower the debt?” Lastly, realize that nothing from the government is free. Everything you ask for from the government comes at the lost liberty of you and your children.